I will protect your pensions. Nothing about your pension is going to change when I am governor. - Chris Christie, "An Open Letter to the Teachers of NJ" October, 2009

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Marie Corfield for NJ Assembly

Can we talk?

Let me be clear: I am not giving up on Barbara Buono's race for governor. New Jersey will pay dearly if we reelect Chris Christie; any Democrat would be better than this utter failure of a leader. The argument for returning Chris Christie to Trenton for another term is, contrary to the protestations of his apologists in the punditocracy, incoherent. If Christie is reelected, I predict we will see a trajectory in his reign similar to the one followed by his mentor, Geroge W. Bush: it will become clear within a year or two of his second term that he is a disaster, incapable of serious leadership, and was simply voted into office on the wings of a historical accident.

Sandy is Chris Christie's 9-11, and we will pay a price for not seeing past the cynical way this complete fraud has wrapped himself in this tragedy. Don't say you weren't warned.

But we have to be honest: Buono's chances are not looking good. I don't blame her at all: I think she is smart and capable, both as a leader and as a politician, and she made as good of a case for herself as could be expected. Unfortunately, she was abandoned by a self-interested New Jersey Democratic machine, and a national party led by a president who didn't care to fight for her. And it didn't help that the mandarins of our media anointed Christie before the race even started. A pity, but not at all surprising, given the way our corrupted politics work these days.

In this reality, we have one hope for containing Chris Christie's inevitable march toward ruin: we must elect more people like Marie Corfield to the New Jersey legislature.

Marie is a teacher, a mother, and a fighter. She fights for public education because she knows New Jersey's excellent schools are under attack from forces who would see them dismantled in favor of privatization and an oppressive testing regime that is bad for kids. She fights for marriage equality, for women's health care, for reproductive choice, for smart growth, for the environment, for shifting the tax burden off of working families.

Marie Corfield fights for the middle class because she is in the middle class. Unlike Chris Christie, she knows what it's like to be a public school parent. She knows what it's like to manage a budget. She knows what it's like to work hard and play by the rules so her kids can have the same opportunities everyone's kids should have.

Chris Christie understands none of this. He is little more than vassal to power, talking a good game about the middle class while making it harder and harder for them to thrive in New Jersey. Marie Corfield is one of our best chances for calling out Christie on his class warfare policies and forcing Trenton to put working families and their children first.

We may not win the governorship - again, I am not giving up - but even if we don't, we can put Marie Corfield in office to hold back Chris Christie's assault on teachers, the middle class, the working poor, and public education.

As always, thanks to all of you for your support of this blog. If you enjoy what I do, I hope you'll consider giving what you can to help Marie.

3 comments:

I am so disgusted with Obama and the Dems that I no longer believe a word they say. Who knows what Obama whispered in Christie's ear when he came to NJ after Sandy? They triangulate, obfuscate, and manipulate. Obama & the national Democratic party have abandoned all WORKERS (public & private) in general and teachers in particular. The last thing they want is to elect a NJ gov who will support workers.

Marie C. and Barbara B. will most definitely get my vote. Poor Barbara Buono has so many stab marks in her back from all the NJ Democrats who have betrayed her and the party. Obama had a chance to endorse Buono but he took a big fat pass on that. Even when Jimmy Carter was in NJ recently, he spent all his time praising Christie and not a mention of his fellow Democrat. I don't ever remember a Democratic gubernatorial candidate being so abandoned, so sabotaged, so back stabbed as has been Buono by her own party and her fellow Democrats. We really need a strong progressive third party. I am so thoroughly disgusted with the Democrats who have so abandoned their core principles, the New Deal and any hint of progressivism.

Nothing political but I was run off to the side of the road by an obnoxious bus decorated a rock stars might be, black humvees, black suburban a and many motorcycles. Seems they were moving our guy Chris from one speaking op to another. I almost had to mount a curb in Newark leading to 280. I have seen presidents go by but he is no president and his entourage was obnoxious. I am a teacher going home and the stTe almost had one less. This is flying through the streets of Newark and wants respect? It takes more than a diet! What nerve and lack of concern...kinda like he operates.